National Portrait Gallery, London, acquires six portraits for national collection
It is always an honour to enter the hallowed halls of an old establishment, such as one of the wonderful galleries in London. To me (perhaps because of my up-bringing surrounded by artistes!) galleries take on the same hues as a Church. Those of reverence and awe.
I once had a memorable opportunity to enter the National Portrait Gallery out of hours, as assistant to a talented fine art photographer. We were documenting the vast collection of the gallery, much of which is housed off-site and then apparently rotated 'in' every so often. That day we had come to shoot some Hockney pencil and pen-and-ink drawings. They were really wonderful and I really enjoyed just staring at them while the photographer did the business of focussing, squaring up, testing, metering... (those were the old days of shooting on 5x4 inch neg when only one person could really be under the dark cloth at a time).
So it is with great pleasure that I heard the news that the NPG wished to buy 6 more of my poet portraits, bringing the total held in the collection to 12.
The catalogue of my portraits held in the national collection are here.